Only Part of the Story
Jun 22, 2025 at 01:00PM
One of the reasons why I get frustrated reading the tech news is that there are often wild inaccuracies in a lot of different articles, usually on the account of sponsorships. It’s both a blessing and a curse to know as much as I do about technology. Well, in this case it’s more on the curse side.
And now a lot of the inaccuracy I spot in the advent of the newly publicized 16-billion leak is half-truths spun up and over emphasized to sell more subscriptions.
The Facts
We’d have to frame a few facts to show how sensationalized these pieces typically are.
- There are only 8.2 billion people in the world.
- To spin it like these are 16-billion different people is sensationalism at its best. So the count is counting multiple entries of the same people, as well as inactive and bot accounts. In typical fashion of breach counts.
- A lot of the data is compiled from previous breaches.
- The hackers involved seemed to note and include data from previous breaches along with some of the newly acquired information which was on the list. Still dangerous, in that it can give malicious actors a peak into each users’ habits. But it’s not all brand-new data.
- Large industry is not to blame for the new data in the leak.
- For once this is not a breach. It was a theft of the data from the user/client side. So it can be dangerous to suggest password changes and converting to passkeys if the malware hasn’t been scrubbed from the users’ devices yet.
- It’s merely a symptom of the increasing popularity of stealer malware.
- In the past decade, stealer malware has increased in popularity and has grown to be more evasive. This comes as cybercriminals switch from causing harm to capitalizing on their acts with more fiscal interests. And they’re often backed by organized crime while doing so.
- Out of the stolen passwords, only 19% were somewhat secure.
- This points to a greater problem of people not caring or generally being apathetic towards their own cybersecurity practices.
So on this one, the blame more likely falls on people not taking their own cyber security into their own hands, as well as some of the educational institutions for not teaching enough of it to care. Even though I feel that parents should pass down said knowledge to their children, if they don’t have said knowledge, then the schools should be able to pick it up a little bit.
What actually happened
Various security researchers stumbled upon a public cache of account credentials. And before they could work the lists to see which ones were part of previous leaks, and which ones were new, the media ran with it for the sake of sensationalism. Later on after they induced a panic and likely a moment of service bottlenecks caused by the wave of users changing their passwords.
Due to the news of a new, more aggressive and evasive stealer malware being released 3 or more times per week, researchers are thinking the new credentials involved in the leak were stolen through stealer malware. Which would be a you problem if any new credentials of yours was found in the leak.
What to do about it
Researchers and the major companies such as Apple, Google, and others will be monitoring credentials in said leak; and notifying users if their credentials are involved.
If you get notified to change your password, you will want to first get your devices and/or computer checked for malware. If you’re on Android, you will want to make sure Play Protect is enabled in the Play Store settings. You may also want to consider an antimalware. Consider the top mobile offerings of the vendors involved in AV Comparatives testing as they would be more likely to be legitimate. If all else fails then you may want to backup, reset, and restore your data.
iPhone and other Apple mobile device users: Are generally more secure due to the design of the OS and the inability to side-load apps. I’d still advise in precaution by uninstalling any unrecognized apps, reinstalling apps which credentials are involved in the leak, and/or possibly backup, reset, and restore your pictures and information.
PC and Mac users: Consider running a malware scan using an antimalware software which is a top contender on AV Comparatives testing. Just like mobile device users, if you’re still in doubt, might be time for a backup, wipe, and restoration of your data to make sure anything iffy is gone.
Once you’re sure that you’re clear of stealer malware, then you will want to change your passwords or convert to passkeys. Consider adjusting your behavior online if that likely contributed to your credentials being in the leak. This means no installing unfamiliar software, not trusting any claims that seem too good to be true as well as
Also, if you haven’t done so already, you will want to enable multifactor authentication. If you don’t do it for any other account, at the very least, do it for your primary email accounts, banking accounts, and your primary social media accounts. Folks in business and side gigs will also want to secure their accounts tied to domain names as well as business operations in as many ways as possible too.
I’m not alone I guess
I guess I’m not alone. As I was researching this I found that there were other folks who thought a lot like I did when it came to this “new” leak. Lawrence Abrams published this article on Bleeping Computer mirroring the same points I planned on making.